


𝐃𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐨 🁡 𝐷𝑜𝑛'𝑡 𝐶𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑈𝑠 𝐷𝑒𝑎𝑑

by Adrenalineshots, sonshineandshowers, TheFibreWitch



Series: Domino 🁡 [21]
Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst, Caregiving, Case Fic, College Bright, Digital Art, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fear of Police Brutality, Gen, Hallucinations, Harassment, Health Emergency, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Mental Health Issues, Metafiction, Murder Mystery, Nightmares, Surrealism, Systemic Racism, Trauma, Unreliable Narrator, Video, a lot of really strange stuff that happens in altered states of consciousness, anxiousness, mixing, reader-driven
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:55:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26504011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adrenalineshots/pseuds/Adrenalineshots, https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonshineandshowers/pseuds/sonshineandshowers, https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFibreWitch/pseuds/TheFibreWitch
Summary: Selecting 𝐷𝑜𝑛'𝑡 𝐶𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑈𝑠 𝐷𝑒𝑎𝑑 from the bookshelf, Malcolm travels through his own mind.Read this story at:https://www.thedominostory.com/#dont-call-us-deadThis book is one part of the Domino series. If you have not yet read thePrefaceorIntroduction, please head there first.
Series: Domino 🁡 [21]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1926451
Comments: 1
Kudos: 1
Collections: Domino 🁡, Prodigal Son Big Bang 2020 - Saturday Posts





	𝐃𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐨 🁡 𝐷𝑜𝑛'𝑡 𝐶𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑈𝑠 𝐷𝑒𝑎𝑑

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jameena](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jameena/gifts), [MissScorp](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissScorp/gifts), [ProcrastinatingSab](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProcrastinatingSab/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Don't Call Us Dead](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/685342) by Danez Smith. 



> This book is one part of the Domino series. If you have not yet read the [Preface](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26497927/chapters/64577434#workskin) or [Introduction](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26497927/chapters/64588537#workskin), please head there first.
> 
> Betaed by the wonderful [Jameena](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jameena/), [MissScorp](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissScorp/), and [ProcrastinatingSab](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProcrastinatingSab/).
> 
> Credit to the creators and their works that inspired and were referenced in this work:  
>  **— Inspiration:**[Don't Call Us Dead](https://www.graywolfpress.org/books/dont-call-us-dead) \- Danez Smith  
>  **— Cover Song:**[And I Am Telling You](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtnKI3ztz9w) \- Jennifer Holliday  
>  **— Assets:**[Stock Photo](https://www.pexels.com/photo/red-blue-and-white-abstract-painting-1170642/), [Stock Vector](https://depositphotos.com/6503916/stock-illustration-crowd-collection-3.html), [Stock Vector](https://depositphotos.com/6503926/stock-illustration-crowd-collection-1.html), [Stock Texture](https://wallpaperaccess.com/full/968829.jpg)
> 
> Brief parts of lines in italics attributed to the original work.

[](https://www.thedominostory.com/images/full/dont-call-us-dead.jpg) |   
---|---  
  
Half-leaning on the arm of the couch, Malcolm spots Mark walking toward him, furrows in his brow. He’s not entirely sure how Mark ended up at the party because he was more interested in finding out why only some students were showing up on Facebook as research for a Psychology of Technology term paper. Maybe he realized his research would be easier talking to students on campus instead of the Internet — the app was developed at the university a couple years earlier, after all.

Getting out of the house is a blur. Mark keeps talking and _talking_ , but Dr. Whitly’s right there with him, going on his own diatribe about how Malcolm needs to come home to New York. Malcolm didn’t drink enough — silence remains an illusion.

“Bright, you need to go home and sleep,” Mark says, pulling on Malcolm’s sweater sleeve.

Try as he might, it takes all of Malcolm’s energy to attempt to keep going in a straight line. He’d had one Solo cup of punch, maybe two, and it had tipped him between giggling his ass off and dropping to the ground. He’s more coherent in the fresh air now that they’ve been away from the party and walking a bit, but his overtired body is ready to sleep.

“Did you take your meds before you came?” Mark asks, his arm nearly holding Malcolm upright. He spends more time in the gym than Malcolm does, so Malcolm’s weight isn’t an issue, but his tendency to melt to putty makes it slow going. Malcolm’s habit of experimenting with any party he can escape to is a greater strain on his friend.

His head tips onto Mark’s shoulder, getting a full whiff of Axe. “Yeah.”

“You know you can’t do that. Makes you wacky. Makes you… this. You’re lucky I found you and not Carson.” Just what Malcolm would have needed, someone to intimidate him as much as the voices in his head.

A girl down the street reaches for Malcolm, oily fingers primed to latch onto the first thing they touch and draw him under. His father’s voice taunts in his ear, “Come back to see me.” 

“No!” Malcolm yells, pushing away and falling into the short brick wall beside them.

“Bright, it’s just me, Mark. No one’s going to hurt you, ‘cause I’m here. _Please_ let me get you home before someone sees. I don’t want you to be even more upset in the morning.” Mark outstretches his hand. “I _can’t_ be out here.”

Malcolm doesn’t take it but gets up and keeps walking beside him. Mark’s arm instinctively goes back around him, and Malcolm’s grateful he has someone to help him get home. “You have lots of people, like me,” Dr. Whitly reminds him.

“Stop!” Malcolm hollers and drops, covering his ears.

“Bright, Bright, Bright! No one’s here! Fucking hell, man — c’mon!” Mark tugs at his arm.

“What’s going on?” booms to Malcolm’s right, startling him.

“I’m not armed,” Mark says firmly away from Malcolm, then looks back to him. “Stay still, _please_. Please, I’ll get us back safe.”

“ _What’s going on?_ ”

“I’m not armed,” Mark repeats with a level voice. “My friend is sick, and I’m trying to take him home. I’m going to slowly put my hands up.”

“Stop — stop!” Malcolm shouts.

“You’re fine there near the wall. Give him a little space. Just have a few questions.“

In a split-second, Mark’s sitting on the ground beside him, an arm’s length between them. “Cut it out,” Mark grits out, glaring at Malcolm. His tone is sobering, full of fear Malcolm’s never heard before, sparking visions of blades appearing in his hands. “He will _shoot_ me.”

Malcolm pictures a shot striking his friend, Mark’s Harvard t-shirt getting its color from his blood spilling into it, flooding every inch from navel to neck. He wonders how many t-shirts could get dyed with the full eight pints. How many people have wrongly died in similar encounters that never should’ve happened. How his friend is terrified of something he’s never had to worry about. That a college kid, no, _any_ person, shouldn’t need to worry about something as trivial as a walk home. That maybe trivial things to him are actually privileges others don’t get to experience. 

“You’re a Whitly, my boy,” Dr. Whitly announces in the background.

“We’re students heading home,” Mark explains, his voice steady and sure. He has the same confidence when sharing in class, eager to discuss every aspect of abnormal psychology theory. Mark’s focus tends to push people away from him, but their similar drive for answers drew him and Malcolm together. A friendship that dragged Mark into whatever this is right now.

A man crouches in front of Malcolm, and at that point, Malcolm visually confirms the man is a police officer. “He hurt you?” the officer asks Malcolm. “You can get up — you’re safe now.”

Malcolm doesn’t budge — they’re the furthest thing from safe. _Paradise is a world where everything is sanctuary and nothing is a gun_ , where no one gets stopped for no reason, where his friend doesn’t need to worry about getting assaulted for trying to look after him. “He’s helping me, I have medical conditions, we’re just trying to get home,” all rattles out of Malcolm’s mouth, words competing for which one will hit the air first. Face turned to the side, Mark glares at him even stronger.

“I could hear him screaming down the block,” the officer tells Mark. “Are you drunk?”

Mark is shaking beside Malcolm, worse than the tremor that currently plagues his own hand. “He didn’t do _anything_. He’s sober — he doesn’t drink,” Malcolm says. “I have a history of hallucinations, PTSD — I mixed my medicine with a drink and had a bad reaction. That’s _all_. We are trying to get home. _Please_ let us go.” The officer won’t retreat, so he remains close enough for Malcolm to read his name from his uniform and memorize it. Maybe Gil could use it to find his badge number so Malcolm could file a complaint.

“Calm down, kid,” the officer says. “I smell alcohol is all.”

“That’s _me_!” Malcolm argues, Mark still shaking beside him. Having someone other than Gil call him kid bristles his shoulders, being told to calm down makes it worse, but that pales in comparison to the officer’s insistence on drawing out the conversation. They’re clearly not doing anything wrong and Mark’s visibly triggered, so why can’t the officer give them some space? “My family are the Whitly’s, my mother has donated all kinds of money to this campus, and I have the head of Major Crimes at the NYPD on speed dial — what do you _need_ to let us go?”

“Get up,” the officer says, and Malcolm scrambles to his feet while Mark slowly rises beside him, hands always in clear view. Writing a ticket for public intoxication, the officer says, “Go home” and walks away from them. Malcolm throws up to his side, more sickened by the officer seemingly only reacting to his flash of status than the alcohol.

Neither Mark nor Malcolm move. Dr. Whitly keeps chattering in the corner of Malcolm’s mind, yet his brain and heart are racing too much to comprehend him. Malcolm looks to Mark and finds a rattled version of his friend, gritted teeth and hunched posture working to regain control.

“You don’t pull that shit, man — I don’t need defending,” Mark grits out, fists balled on top of the brick wall, his frame shaking a little. “You don’t know how to deal with — “

“I caused this, I got us out of it,” Malcolm interjects.

“Waving around your _fucking_ privilege,” Mark spits, then turns his head away. “ _Abra-cadaver_. You don’t get this. I have experience with this type of situation, and you ran your mouth like some expert. _Asshat_.”

The combination of adrenaline wearing off, alcohol, and medication in his system leaving him woozy, Malcolm rests his hands on the wall to stay upright. “You’re right — I don’t. I’m sorry.”

Guilt plunges through his chest more virulently than his father’s blade. Focusing on counting his breaths, he struggles to center, wills himself to get it together to make it home. His friend needs his support, his ability to listen, and he’s not there right now — he’s a liability.

He reaches to pat Mark’s back, but his friend pulls away. “Not now,” Mark growls. He takes Malcolm’s arm and starts leading him down the street, a gruff procession compared to his earlier care. “Let’s get you home,” he says, his voice more level.

They make the slow trek back to Malcolm’s off-campus apartment, Mark seeing him up the stairs and inside. He doesn’t move to leave, sitting in one of the living room chairs, so Malcolm hands him a seltzer over his shoulder and sits near him on the couch with a can of ginger ale.

“I’m black first,” Mark says, fingers nervously interlocking and coming apart. “Recognizing me as a man or a Harvard student always comes after, if at all. The system is fucking broken, and you want to go work for it.”

“To help,” Malcolm clarifies, rolling the can back and forth between his hands.

“How? What _actionable_ steps are you going to take?” Mark’s anger resurfaces. “Some of the classes we’re taking right now have bias built in. You think anyone magically unlearns that when they make it into the field?”

“No,” Malcolm says quietly, looking at his pants. Though they’re in the same major, their trajectories are to immensely different disciplines, Mark’s interests closer to Gabrielle’s. As much as Malcolm knows his friend will never be entirely comfortable with his career choice, he’s thought about it for so long and can’t see himself doing anything else. “I can’t pick another field, Mark. I don’t know what else to do with myself, and a lifetime at Claremont Psychiatric Hospital doesn’t seem like a good option.”

“You are not your father.”

Malcolm shrugs and drinks his ginger ale.

“How are you _still_ making this about you?” Mark glares at him in disbelief. “You think I go to the BSA just for fun? They’re supportive. What actions are you going to take to support people of color in your line of work? How are you going to ensure you don’t do _that_ to someone.”

Malcolm balks — he’d _never_ racially profile anyone. Mark knows that, doesn’t he? _Can you guarantee that’s true_ , doubt creeps in. Malcolm doesn’t know what to do — he’s not well-versed in all of the aspects of police reform. He could recite something he’s learned from Gil or books, but he knows Mark would see through that and challenge him further. Being truthful about his shortcomings is the only option he has. “I know I can be an ally to alternative policing. I can offer the most expertise in areas of mental health. But I also know to learn what I can do better, where I can offer more help.”

“That’s a start.” Mark sighs. “Don’t put the burden on me to teach you. And that back there? That was you making things _worse_. You can fight with me, not for me.” He keeps gesturing at Malcolm with his hand, drilling in the rolling impact of his choices. “I am _teaching_ you right now. You need to read, you need to _listen_. You’re not the expert on this. _Listen_ for where you can help. This is not my job.” Veins in his neck straining, he’s aggravated all over again, a trauma that keeps reemerging instead of lessening. A trauma whose magnitude Malcolm failed to recognize — it’s an ever-present weight imposed on his friend. “I can’t do this right now.” Mark pushes to his feet and escapes up the stairs, leaving Malcolm alone in the living room.

Malcolm’s phone hops in his hand as he frantically googles how to be a better advocate, the letters blurry and bopping as they tremble from anxiousness, the knowledge he’d failed so significantly. It’s a search far too late yet never too late at the same time. It’s not the right time to make it, his ignorance having already been problematic, but is there ever one? Better to admit he failed and can do better and move on to action.

His once-tired brain is wired, wanting to look up all of his questions at once and absorb the Internet. He starts down a path of researching racial justice and how to be an active participant, reading a smattering of guides, tracing a vein of cumulative microaggressions and their traumatic effects. It’s not that he’s never researched being an ally before, it’s that he’s realizing he has gaps and looking at it with fresh eyes. He’s spidered across many primary sources when a line smacks him across the brain, stops his pursuit immediately — _are you trying to feel better or do better? Talk without action is part of the problem. Do them together_ — _do better._

He turns off his phone. Slides to the floor in a plank because it’ll be painful, make his abs and limbs shake with exertion and force his brain to think about what he’s done, face that he can’t fix himself in one night. Think about calling Jackie and Gil because she’ll give it to him straight about a best course of action and he’ll be able to help work through filing a complaint. Down and up and down and up, again, again, over and over Malcolm synthesizes what he read and pieces together what he wants to ask them.

“How’s your head?” Mark asks, snapping Malcolm out of his exercise and laying flat on his back.

“No complaints,” Malcolm deadpans.

Mark glares back at him, unamused, but his anger from earlier is gone. “How about next time you call me instead of doing stupid shit?” He taps Malcolm’s calf with his foot.

“Hearing about my daddy issues — I’m sure that’s top of the list.” Malcolm closes his eyes, rubs the bridge of his nose.

“Better than getting stopped by the cops. It’s traumatic, triggering.”

“I’m really sorry.”

“Call me next time.” Mark punctuates each syllable with more foot taps to Malcolm’s calf.

“I can try,” Malcolm offers. It’s the best he can do, as he’s learned not to promise things he fails at controlling when he’s not in good health. “I really fucked up. I understand a little more about how badly now, and — “ He clamps his mouth shut, realizing his line of conversation is self-serving. _Stop trying to feel better. Do something._

Mark remains standing over him, neither of them moving. 

“Do you want to talk about it? Should we tell someone? A campus admin?” Malcolm asks.

“Noooooo. It’s done. Please leave this alone. My dream’s like right there.” Mark pokes at the air. “I can become a therapist, I can do this before my diagnosis catches up with me — leave it.”

“Alright.” Maybe there’s some sort of in-between. “I want to tell Gil. File a complaint.”

Mark rolls his shoulders and sighs. “We can talk about it tomorrow.” He holds out a hand for Malcolm to take. “Let’s go upstairs before your ass passes out here and I need to stop you from running out the front door.”

“That’s only happened — “

Mark pulls him to his feet. “Too many times. I’ll make sure you’re in one piece, then we can both get to class.”

The two men trudge up the stairs, Mark taking the guest room. Malcolm lays awake awhile, wrestling with how he ever got so lucky to call Mark his friend. Mark deserves so much better. Malcolm tosses that thought away as quickly as it comes, realizing he’s making it about himself again. Staring at the ceiling, all of the web pages he read come to life, weaving through his mind into potential actions and questions to ask Jackie and Gil, this time getting to a place he can hear himself asking them. Task complete, exhaustion reappears and drops him to sleep.

Mark’s yell breaks through the wall between them in the middle of the night, waking Malcolm. Malcolm unclasps his restraints and pops out of bed, poking his head into the next room. “You okay?” he asks.

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“Can I get you anything?”

Mark rolls his bottom lip between his teeth and looks up at him. “Hold me for a little while?”

Malcolm climbs in beside him, hugging his friend like Gil and Jackie had hugged him, like Mark had hugged him. He has no idea what Mark’s nightmare was about, knows better than to ask, but he’s fairly sure he’s the cause of it, that his poor decisions landed him in a horrible situation. A police officer may have been Malcolm’s savior, Gil’s presence still the biggest influence in his life, but they’re Mark’s danger.

Malcolm sighs, wondering if they’ve spent so much time _arguing how they matter, yet they still don’t matter_. If either one of them had died, would anyone care beyond the other? Did true peace only come in death? A terrible thought crosses his mind that if they don’t improve this world, that’s the only way Mark’s trauma will end. There has to be another way.

“Okay — I’m alright,” Marks says, pulling away.

Malcolm rubs Mark’s hair, lingering an extra second, and slides off the side of the bed. “Knock on the wall deal, alright?”

“Yeah.”

Malcolm retreats to his room, listening for whether his friend needs help on the other side, hoping they never need to _plant a garden on top where Mark’s hurt stops_. He texts Gil, telling him he’d like his help looking something up in the morning. Knows that he can’t just let it pass and go to class. He needs to do better.

— ◌◯◌ —

On a hunch, JT calls for Dani to join him in Gil’s office, and he punches in a number he hasn’t used in a while. The Ask New York Public Library service greets them. With an explanation that they’re with the NYPD, they get forwarded in an attempt to expedite their research request and bypass the typical 24-hour turnaround. Dani smirks while the hold music plays in the background. JT hits the mute button. “What?”

“You know the AskNYPL number off the top of your head?” Dani teases.

“It’s useful — they can tell you everything.”

“Like?”

“Antique weaponry. How to see if A. S. Harper is A. S. Harper,” he redirects them back to the topic at hand and hits the mute button again, effectively ending any further probing.

“Hello, this is Charlie,” comes through the line. “My colleague explained your inquiry — how may I be of help?”

“We’re working on a murder investigation, and we’re wondering if there’s any way to tell if a book was written by an author,” JT explains.

“True murder mystery,” Charlie jokes.

JT and Dani exchange glances — they’re not in the mood.

Charlie continues talking. “It’s a widely discussed theory that some of Shakespeare’s plays weren’t written by Shakespeare. They likely were, but the argument is he could have worked with script committees to meet the demands of the playhouse. Statistically, there are particular sections of plays that are more supportive of this argument.”

“In English?” JT says.

“Redactive analysis. Patterning like word frequency, combinations, style, vocabulary, structure. If you write a page today, it’s statistically similar to one you wrote five years ago. You could try to emulate something different, but it would likely still be identifiable as you.”

“We’re not writers,” Dani cuts in.

“Anyone’s a writer! All you need is a surface and words.”

Their words swim around in Dani’s head as she tries to decipher what they’re explaining. “If we had a set of books — “

“A corpus.”

“Could you tell us if they were all written by the same person?”

“The likelihood that each is similar to the full body of work in the corpus, yes. Not me, though. I know someone who does this. You need the Library and Information Science department at NYU. I’ll get you their contact info.”

“How do you know this stuff?” Dani blurts.

“This is my field, so it’s top of mind. Usually we go do a little research for you and come back. Please give me a moment, and I’ll get you a phone number.”

Dani and JT are put on hold again, the nondescript music playing in Gil’s office. JT hits the mute button again. “Told you,” he says with a smirk.

“I’m gonna need a better explanation than antique weaponry.”

“After we close this case.” After Malcolm makes it through alive.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. Head back to the [Bookshelf](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26497927/chapters/64588570#workskin) to pick another book. :)


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